Introduction.

If I had to summarize it: In the first volume of my memoirs I was as free as a bird, a child without a care, just flitting about in that sweet little Kamenits amidst joyous Khsidim and pensive Misnagdim, around my busy grandfather and goodhearted grandmother, among a host of Rebbes, preachers, religious Jews, exorcists and recluses, thinking that Kamenits was the world and that God was sitting on high, in heaven, just observing the goings on in our townlet. If that is the correct characterization of my role in the first volume, here, in the second volume, I am a real Diaspora-Jew, an itinerant man, a vagabond, a man carrying a big pack, a job seeker, a teacher, a tenant farmer, a lessee of an estate, a shopkeeper, a wine maker*, a Menakhem Mendl**, forever throwing himself into something new without ever attaining a practical goal.

But while plunging into the water like a fish I kept my eyes open. Maybe it was because of my open eyes that I did not get anywhere... instead I did get a look at things, I did see and hear a thing or two. I will tell you about it in this second volume.

Maybe I am too preoccupied with myself. It may be that I am too much entwined in the things I write about, give myself too important a part. But how could it be different? After all, they are my memories, my experiences, my reminiscence...

Anyway, how could I disassociate myself from an event, a fact, an episode, that took away a part of my soul?

Y. K.

*vayner/veyner: Kotik was both a 'vayner', maker of wine, and a veyner, a balbekhi (Chapter XII, p. 189, line 4).

**Menakhem Mendl: A well known character, created by Sholem Aleykhem.

Sholem Aleykhem published a series of letters, purporting to be written by Menakhem-Mendl and his wife, published under the title "Menakhem-Mendl" from 1892-1903. The letters were published again by Sholem Aleykhem in a revised form in 1909. In 1913 Sholem Aleykhem added another series of letters, in which Kotik figures as a character. This was after he had read the first volume of Kotik's memoirs, In January 1913.